1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of brick handling and packaging. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for automatically unloading kiln cars and stacking the unloaded brick in proper size plastic band strapped bundles having forklift tine receiving openings for enabling subsequent handling for shipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is a current practice in the brick industry to manually unload brick from kiln cars and to manually stack the brick in bundles for binding and/or packaging for shipment. These activities are extremely labor intensive and require as many as 15 employees in an average brick producing facility. Also, these jobs involve extensive lifting of heavy brick and back and other injuries frequently result in down time and attendant worker compensation losses can be substantial. It is therefore understandable that the nature of the work required in these jobs can result in a very high turnover rate of employees.
While the foregoing problems have been recognized for many years, no satisfactory solution has evolved in the brick industry prior to the present invention.